Some applications traditionally have been run exclusively by system administrators. In some cases, this is because the application requires access to information beyond the privileges of any individual user. For example, a backup application may require access to all user data, essentially requiring system administrator access privileges, in order to provide a comprehensive service. However, if the system administrator is the only one able to run certain applications, the system administrator becomes a bottleneck. It would be useful to enable users to run all, or certain modes, of the applications themselves while still preserving access limitations. In particular, in the context of backup applications it would be useful to enable an individual user to access and use a backup application and associated backup data to restore the user's own files and/or other data.